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2

Whether their fellow prisoners had been moved to dine together, Andas did not know or care. But once his hunger was satisfied, he realized that their party seemed to have divided in two. He, Yolyos, and Elys—the other three (unless Turpyn walked alone) in the other group. He commented on this.

The Salariki replaced the lid on his mug, having drained the last drop of its contents with relish.

"Of Naul I know something," he said. "It is close to the Nebula, a collection of three systems, ten planets. We have trading stations on three. One exports the Tear Drops of Lur—"

He must have noticed Elys's baffled expression, for he explained.

"Perfume, my lady, and a very rare one. It is distilled from an exudation that gathers on certain stones set like pillars among native vegetation—but it is not traders' information you seek now. It remains that I have heard of Naul, and if this Tsiwon is who he says he is, then in him you see one of equal power perhaps with your emperor, Prince. Incidentally, where lies this empire?"

"From here—who knows? We of Inyanga hold the five planets of the system of Dingange—Terran rooted. Our First Ships came with the Afro outspread," he said proudly, and then knew that this history meant nothing to these aliens and hurriedly added, "That was a very first outspread."

But since that appeared to mean nothing either, he elaborated no further. Instead, he waited for Elys to add her bit to their pooled information.

"I am Demizonda of Islewaith. We have spread to no other planet, since our sun has but three, and two are near waterless. But I have heard of Thrisk where this Grasty must rule. They control the Metallic Weed Combine."

"Naul, Inyanga, Thrisk, Posedonia, Sargol—" Andas began when the Salariki corrected him.

"Not Sargol—if you mean from where I was snatched. As I have said, I was on Framware then. I wonder how the trade treaty advanced after my disappearance." He flexed his claws, eying that display absently.

"Time!" Andas got swiftly to his feet, for the first time sharply aware of what might have been for him a disastrous passage of planet days—even weeks. "What day—month can it be now? How long have we been here?"

Elys gave a little cry. Her hands, with the delicate webbing halfway up the fingers, flew to her mouth. "Time!" she repeated. "The full tide of Qinguam! If that is past—"

"So." That word in Basic became the hiss of a feline in Yolyos's mouth. "May I guess that each of you also were faced with a situation in which time had importance?"

Andas caught the significance of that at once. "You think that is why we are here?" And he followed that question quickly with an answer to Yolyos. "Yes, time has importance for me. I am not in direct line to the throne. Among my people it is not as on some worlds; the crown does not pass from father to son. Rather, since my ancestors had a number of wives—officially one from each of certain noble families—the Emperor designates his choice from among those of the royal clan houses who are of suitable age. Though such multiple marriages are no longer common, yet the choice still lies among all the males of the royal line.

"It is my grandfather who rules the Triple Towers now, and he had three possible heirs of my generation—four if one counts Anakue. But when he summoned me to his presence, it was thought he had chosen. Only to make it final, I must appear on the day of Chaka and be crowned by his own hands in the presence of all the houses of a Hundred Names. If I am not there—"

"You lose the throne?" Yolyos prompted as Andas's voice trailed away. For the first time he realized just how deeply disaster might have struck.

"Yes." He sat down on the edge of Elys's bed.

"Now I have a treaty instead of a throne to protect. But if I am not at Framware to argue it through, then it is not only that I shall have my name and clan blackened, but also Sargol loses." Once more the Salariki flexed his claws, and his voice dropped to a low throated growl.

"Imust sing the full tide in, I must!" Elys clenched her hands into fists. "If I do not, the charm passes from the blood of Elden to Ewauna. And that must not be so!"

"Three of us, and perhaps them also." Andas nodded to the door to signify the others. "But why? Those who might wish us elsewhere are widely scattered and have nothing in common. Who would collect us here?"

"Well asked, young man." The voice might have had the tremor of age, but the words came forcibly. They looked up to see Tsiwon within the door. "I, too, can add to your list of people who have reason to want to know the present date. If I have not been present to speak against the proposed alliance with the Upshars—" He shook his head. "I fear for Naul. Now"—he rounded on Andas—"on what day do you remember being last in your proper place?"

"It was the fifth day past the feast of Itubi. Oh, you mean in galactic reckoning—wait." Andas did a sum in his head—planet time was for planet life only, and from world to world the length of days and years varied. "As far as I can make it—but it would be the year only—2230 A.F."

"You are wrong!" Elys shook her head emphatically. She had been tapping fingers on the table top as if counting off some numbers. "It was 2195. I know that's true," she continued triumphantly, "because I had reason to consult the overdating just the day before—the day—"

"You say 2230, this young lady 2195," Tsiwon repeated. "Now I have good reason, very good reason, to know the proper date, since I had contact with the Central Control commissioner and thumb-signed two documents. And the date on those was 2246."

"I shall add the final confusion." Yolyos broke across the assurance of that statement. "My last date was 2200."

Andas glanced from one to another. There was indignation plain to read on Tsiwon's age-seamed face and Elys's youthful countenance. Only the Salariki appeared unruffled by what must certainly be the most inaccurate working out of galactic dating he had ever heard.

In his head the prince did some adding and subtracting. Between his date and Elys's lay thirty-five galactic years, between Yolyos's and his thirty years, while he differed sixteen years from Tsiwon.

"Do you now begin to wonder"—Yolyos broke the silence of their dissent—"just how long we have severally been here and whether it is possible we did not all come at the same time?"

But Andas did not want to consider that. If Tsiwon's reckoning was correct—why, then, long since had his chance slipped from him! Who ruled now—Jassar, Yuor, even Anakue? How long had he been here? He looked at his smooth brown arms and what he could see of his body. He did not seem any older. He could not be so—he would not!

"First, how do we get away?" Elys demanded. "What matters speaking of time until we do? We have been under a mind lock here—we must have been, or we would remember how we came to these holes!" She glanced about with disdain. "So perhaps we do not remember clearly even now. But get away—I must!"

Andas had gone to the window slit. The scene outside was almost exactly what he saw from his own cell, save that the water which had been there earlier was drying, leaving pools and threads of streams where there had been small lakes and rivers. But the bleakness promised nothing in the way of escape.

"I think we should ask Turpyn," Yolyos said.

Andas looked back. "Do you think then that he might be a guard, pretending to be one of us?" He repeated his earlier thought.

"Ingenious and possible. Though I believe on our first meeting I detected in him some of the same reactions to awakening here in the unknown. But he either knows this place better than we do, or else he is aware of its purpose and that of our being here, for his first reaction was outrage."

"As if some trap of his own had sprung on him?" Tsiwon interrupted. "You are right, Lord Yolyos. I had a similar impression when we first gathered. So, let us ask questions of Turpyn and this time receive straight answers." The old man's face had not looked benign before, and now his straight-lipped mouth and the expression in his eyes made Andas shift from one foot to the other.

The history of Inyanga was bloody enough. There had been rebellion, the rise and fall of dynasties accompanied by blood spilling, much his people had to feel shame for. But that they did today feel shame for such acts was hailed as a definite step toward another civilization. In Tsiwon's face he read recourse to older and darker ways.

But there was nothing to say until they found their man and he either refused to talk or otherwise opposed them. He followed the Arch Chief of Naul and the Salariki out the room, Elys behind him.

Neither Turpyn nor Grasty was in his cell, and once more the others descended the ramp. The standing robots made it difficult to see the whole of this room. It was a perfect place for an ambush. Andas motioned the girl behind him. He wished he had even a knife of ceremony. One man with a stunner or blaster could master them all.

"Over there—" The prince started at that hiss from his left. The Salariki was pointing to the far right where a door stood half open.

They took the long way around, not weaving among the stalled robots, but keeping to open spaces along the walls, a precaution Andas heartily endorsed. He had not trusted Turpyn from the first, and whether there might be others here they had not located in their search was a question that continued to plague him. Somehow the idea of a prison run only by robots did not seem possible.

"—no better than the rest. So don't try it! My offer is the only one worth taking."

Grasty's voice, thick and throaty, reached them. There was a muttered answer they were too far away to hear. Once more Grasty spoke, his tone one of exasperation and rising anger.

"You will do it because you are no better situated than we are, Veep!"

Veep! That title was one which almost every civilized planet in the galaxy knew to its sorrow. Thieves' Guild boss! It fitted this situation exactly! Kidnaping on the scale their presence here represented could only have been carried out by the Guild. In that case, they were being held for ransom, and Turpyn was the one left in charge—

Andas caught the Salariki's eye. The alien made a quick gesture of assent. Tsiwon and the girl—Andas motioned them to stay where they were. Shoulder to shoulder with Yolyos, he moved toward the door, aiming a kick that sent it flying fully open. The alien entered with an effortless leap, and Andas followed. Grasty was standing over Turpyn, the Veep, who was sitting before a small control board.

Both swung around at the entrance of the other two. Grasty fell back a step or so, which in that narrow space brought him against a cabinet for tapes. Andas crowded him, hands coming up to deliver the blows that would render this man helpless before he could move his flabby bulk. The Salariki had gone for Turpyn, hooking his claws in the other's coverall at the shoulders, dragging him up and out of his seat.

"What—" began Grasty.

"Close your mouth!" Andas scowled at him. "Or I'll close it for you. What deal were you making with this Veep?"

"Ask at the source," Yolyos said. He gave his captive a deceptively gentle shake, and the man's pallid face twisted, though whether in pain or apprehension of what might happen to him, Andas could not guess.

"Now, little man," Yolyos continued, "tell us what you know that we should be aware of." With apparently little or no effort, he held his captive so that Turpyn's feet no longer touched the floor. Though the man writhed and fought, he could not break free. His face smoothed, then, as if he had come to some decision, and he stopped his useless struggles.

"I will tell you what I know," he agreed in a flat tone. "It is little enough, though there may be that here which will inform us." He pointed with his chin to the wall facing him.

Andas saw then that the cabinet against which Grasty leaned was not the only record depository. Three of the four walls were so furnished, and behind the control desk where Turpyn had been seated, there was a visa-screen, now blank.

"Speak." Yolyos lowered him into the chair, but he did not release his hold. He stood behind Turpyn, those claw points visibly piercing the fabric, at some places marked with small red stains.

"I don't know much." Turpyn's face was now expressionless. "And a lot is guessing—from things I once heard—"

"Spare us time waste," ordered Yolyos. "Begin with what you do know and let us judge whether it be small or large."

"Mind you—I have only bits and pieces," he still insisted. "But what I have heard is this—that there is a place where, for a price, one could exchange a man for his android double. And that double could be programed to do what the buyer desired, while the real man was kept in storage, to be disposed of later if wished."

"A likely story!" Andas burst out.

"Be not so quick, young man." That was Tsiwon now inside the door. "Never say anything is impossible. And this service"—he advanced to the other side of the desk and leaned across to better meet Turpyn eye to eye—"was run by whom? The Guild?"

Turpyn shook his head. "None of ours. Would I be here if it was?"

Grasty snickered. "You might, if there was a power struggle on. Promotion in the Guild changes often by force."

Turpyn's mouth drew tight, but he neither looked at the councilor nor answered that taunt. "The Mengians were responsible—according to what I heard."

Andas was bewildered. That name was new to him. But he saw the change on three other faces. Grasty speedily lost that malicious grin, and both Tsiwon and Elys looked startled. There was a shadow of what could only have been fear on all three.

"Enlighten us," Yolyos ordered. "Do not complicate matters. Who—or what—are the Mengians?"

"The heirs of the Psychocrats." Tsiwon spoke before Turpyn. "It is not generally known, but those were not totally wiped out when their oligarchy fell. There have always been tales that a handful escaped, withdrew to some hidden place to carry on their experiment, the code name for their headquarters being Mengia. Now and then legends have a remarkable core of reality."

Andas shivered. Psychocrats had not meddled in Dingane's system. But they had heard tales. If their sort still existed, it would be dark knowledge to set at least a quarter of the galaxy having nightmares.

"This—this could be so." Grasty had lost his arrogance. "It is the sort of plan they would make, this introducing rulers of their own. And, by all accounts, their techs had the skills to make undetectable androids. Why, they could reconquer all they had lost, without discovery until too late! Back—I must get back to Thrisk—warn—"

"It may already be far too late," Tsiwon said slowly. "We do not know how long we have been here. Our replicas could well have turned our rulerships into holdings for the Mengians."

That first chill Andas had felt was nothing to the cold encasing him now. If they had been prisoners of some remnant of the Psychocrats, why, then even the weird difference in time they had worked out earlier could also be true! They could have been kept here in some state resembling stass-freeze. And that had been known to last for centuries of planet time!

It was Yolyos who spoke. "You mentioned earlier, Turpyn, that this service was run for sale. Then you speak of it being a Mengian plot to regain their control. Which was it—transactions with those who had good reason to wish us personally out of the way, or a plot aimed at us simply because we held the positions that we did?"

Turpyn shook his head. "That is one of the things I can't answer, and it is 'can't' and not 'won't,' I assure you. I heard of this setup as a straight transaction. On payment, anyone selected would be taken, his android double substituted. Then there was a second rumor that the buyer himself was double-crossed. How true I can't tell."

"But to fashion such an android, implant it with the proper memories—how could they do it?" Elys wondered. "They would have to be almost flawless to deceive those who know us well. Such a process would take time. And if we did not lend ourselves to memory taping, how could they do it?"

"If the Mengians are the Psychocrats and they are responsible," Andas said, though he shrank from what seemed the truth, "then they could do it, somehow. They did stranger things with men's bodies and minds when they ruled."

"All the more reason"—Grasty pushed forward—"for us to get back as quickly as possible and see what has happened, repair the damage—"

He must not have considered time lapse, Andas decided. But to get away from here, yes, that was their first concern. Only how? Yolyos was already on that track.

"You know something of such installations as this." He addressed Turpyn. "How do they get supplies? I do not believe that the food we have just eaten was grown from proto cells."

"Behind you is a ship call, but the setting suggests a robot autocontrol," the Veep answered. "If any supply ship comes, it must also be robot, locked on a single course. In order to use it for escape, we shall have to substitute tapes, and where will you get another? Unless the ship has a collection—which is not always the equipment of a locked course transport."

"What is this room? There are records of some sort stored here." Andas tried to fit his thumb into the release on the nearest cabinet and found it impossible.

"Locked—on some personna lock."

"Since when has such a thing as a personna lock," inquired Grasty, "kept a barrier intact when faced by a Guild tech? You can open these."

"Given time and tools, yes," Turpyn admitted.

"You'll have both," the Salariki promised. "Suppose we start looking for tools now."

Though Turpyn grumbled and swore that he probably could not find the delicate instruments he needed, he went to the smaller section of the outer room where one of the robots, halted like the rest in mid-section, had been engaged in repairing one of its fellows whose outer casing sat to one side. The main parts of its inner works were spread out on a bench.

There the Veep picked and chose until he had a handful of small tools Andas could not identify. They had all trailed along to watch him, as if their united wills could spur him to greater efforts.

With his possible pick-locks he went to the record room and set to work. That he was an artist in his field was clearly to be seen. Andas wondered at his dexterity. If he were a Veep, surely he would not be one of the general workmen of the Guild—unless there were criminal actions that fell to the upper class alone. At any rate, he knew what he was doing.

It took a long time. Tsiwon pleaded fatigue and went back to his cell. Sometime later a drooping Elys followed him, seeming to have lost her fear of being alone.

Grasty had taken the chair before the visa-screen, fitting his flabby bulk into it with difficulty. Andas watched for a while, but was too restless to stay on in that narrow room, choosing to prowl about the larger chamber, moving less warily now among the stalled robots.

Beside the repair alcove was the room into which the food robot had gone, but he could not open that door. However, there was another, which yielded.

A burning hot wind blew into his face. His eyes squinted against a glare as he took one step into the outer world, his hand keeping the door ready for retreat from this heat, light, and smell, for the air had an acrid odor that set him coughing. He feared to remain outside long. He had had time enough to sight the burn-scarred, slag-frosted surface of a landing field. How long had it been since the last ship set down there?

Coughing, he retreated, sealing out that atmosphere. One thing was plain. Without some form of body protection, probably also breathing masks and eye goggles, none of them could last long planet-side here.

There were no other openings. He made the circuit of the walls, returning to the room where Turpyn still worked. And he arrived just in time to see the Veep stand back and give a jerk with a tool he had set point-deep in one of those depressed locks. There was a splintering sound, and the drawer opened.

His guess was right. Orderly rows of taped records faced them. Grasty was still trying to pry himself out of the chair, but Yolyos elbowed Turpyn aside and raked out the nearest tape case.

Where there should have been a title there was only a code—as they might have expected.

"A reader—where is a reader?" Grasty hammered on the desk top with the puffy palm of his hand as if that would make the necessary device rise out of its surface.

But it seemed that Turpyn knew something more of the room. He snatched the tape from the Salariki, shook it from its case, and snapped it into a slot topping a small bank of controls that took up more than half of the desk surface.

"Out of the way, you tub of sogweed!" He pushed at Grasty, sending the big man away from the desk.

Turpyn paid him no more attention, turning instead to thumb a lever. The visa-screen rippled alive, and a clear picture showed there in tri-dee detail. It was the body of an alien, totally naked.

"Zacathan." Andas did not know he had made that identification aloud until he heard his own voice. But that was speedily drowned out by a precise voice, human in timbre, reciting a series of code sounds that had no meaning. The picture changed from the whole body to sections, each enlarged, and always accompanied by the code.

They watched to the end of the tape, learning nothing more than the exact details of the unknown Zacathan's body. Then both the pictures and the voice were gone.

"I think," Yolyos remarked, "that that was a pattern for the making of an android. Some other unfortunate who was meant to join our company, but he did not. Suppose we try another."

The second tape was poised in his hand to be inserted in the reader when the visa-screen flashed a new image. But now the code symbols running across it meant something to Turpyn.

"Ship planeting," he announced.

At the same time there was a clanking noise from the outer room, and Andas, nearest to the door, moved to look out.

Three of the largest robots, which had been in one line against the far wall, were moving forward as if the arrival of the ship activated them when it was still off-world. They were cargo carriers, and they were rumbling on toward that door through which Andas had looked out into the waste.

 

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